(for Annabel Weinstein)
The static of a short-wave
hums me northward
to the world you painted —
immigrant streetscapes,
childhood photos reborn in
happy colors.
We used to make a collage
with our talk,
bright bits of daily life.
People here are friendly.
Shopkeepers I’ve just met
tease, use my girlhood name.
Sometimes I miss the
hint of formality,
the public crispness.
Oak and dogwood shade
our hillside house,
but in fall I crave
the maple’s tangy red.
The spring here takes a
northerner’s breath away,
eases the wild goose longing
to wing home.
You sit on my wall,
self-portrait gazing at me
across a continent.
Lend me your palette,
paint me a way to be here.
